I'm a sucker for poignant reflections. The examples I like best sound like origin myths, often bringing back to life a long-lost or little known moment that once threatened the journey before it had even found the road. I first recognized how much I like hearing such stories around fifteen years ago. I had just gotten my hands on U2 Go Home, a live concert DVD of their 2001 show at Slane Castle. As they start ‘Out Of Control’, Bono takes the crowd into his head and introduces the performance as if it were 1980 and nobody cared about their first single. Halfway through the song, The Edge starts playing the solo on a loop while Bono wanders through memory, speaking as if he’s in front of his father, asking for money, for one last chance to get the band off the ground – I still need a lend of five hundred pounds... waddaya say? It’s moving to think that the band who once needed so much unconditional support would go on to measure their success in so much more than just musical terms. I loved this clip the first time I heard it, back when I didn’t even know that the show was taped just days after Bono’s father had died.
These deeply personal reflections can define the best of the stories we tell each other. I’ve enjoyed hearing them in someone’s happiest moment and I’ve been privileged to share in them during someone’s darkest time. The aftermath of a great accomplishment seems to be a common catalyst for these reflections. I recently had the privilege of hearing a speech from Billy Star, inspired decades ago by the deaths of loved ones to start the Pan-Mass Challenge. Starr is a dynamic speaker, one who commands attention from every corner of the room, and he described how the PMC grew from humble beginnings into one of the largest fundraising events in the nation. I found myself locked into his words at a level I rarely reach from the audience. By the end of the speech, I was emotional thinking about how unimaginable the PMC's recent $63 million fundraising gift for Dana-Farber would have been for this young man, riding his bike toward Provincetown all those years ago, thinking about catching the last ferry and carrying the weight of his grief the entire way.
Starr reminded me of Jim Valvano and his famous speech at the 1993 ESPY awards. The origin aspect in particular was reminiscent of how Valvano shared that preparing a speech prompted him to think back to his first speech. There is something really special about his anecdote, a nervous rookie coach in the freshman locker taking his first steps toward his eventual moment on stage, a journey marked by the eventual highs and lows familiar to those who've learned about his career. Every time I watch that speech, I marvel at how a coach who once defined success as focusing on family, religion, and the Green Bay Packers, the one who knew he was going to become the greatest coach in the world, found the strength to lead us to the frontier of the Jimmy V Foundation, the $250 million dollars its raised to date for cancer research, and all the lives the foundation would forever change.
The unifying aspect of these origin stories is the way they thread the chaos of a lifetime to connect the otherwise scattered moments. They package all the conflicting moments and emotions, all the satisfaction, suffering, and purpose, and shape them into stories that help us better understand the ups and downs of life. These stories don’t just explain the past, they also give us the direction we need to keep going. They remind us that almost every moment can be a beginning, and help bolster us when our belief falters. We use these stories to remember how we’ve made journeys before, and we're reminded that most journeys started from origins unfamiliar to our eventual destination. We learn that everyone is a beginner. Often, all we needed to do on these journeys each day was to keep going, one step at a time, until we arrived.
I’m in a reflective mood today because this is the 1000th post on TOA. I’m not sure exactly what I expected on day one. I recall having a vague notion of wanting to write consistently and a growing realization that some things never start until you get started. I knew enough about myself that I was capable of maintaining a challenging daily rhythm if I put in the initial effort. I understood that I couldn’t have asked for better timing to get the ball rolling. I suppose I pulled all of this together and decided that it was the right idea to get busy writing. The one factor I didn’t properly consider turned out to be the most important one of all – readers. I had willing readers, and I still do. I asked – more than once – for a lend of 500 posts, and I'm grateful for each person who lent me an eye or two. Thank you for reading.
Most of life’s moments are opportunities for new beginnings. It seems, whether for better or for worse, that most of these opportunities pass us right by. I suppose when it comes to beginnings, we are all beginners. There are many reasons for this but I think the most significant is a lack of support. There isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough time, there isn’t enough reinforcement, and before you know it the book ends in the opening chapter. I can’t overstate the gift of supporting an idea at its most vulnerable moment, to hear life in the quietest heartbeat, and I consider myself among the privileged recipients of this priceless gift. So, reader, once again, thank you for reading.
I’ve enjoyed writing for you and I look forward to doing more in the future. I’m not sure what it will look like – let's hope for five hundred more posts, or possibly not. All I know is that I will ask for your support once more, as we all should, when we are ready to begin again.
